


Star

by chamel



Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [6]
Category: The Mandalorian (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst with a Happy Ending, Awkward Conversations, Blood and Injury, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Feelings, Friends to Lovers, Heartache, Idiots in Love, Post-Season/Series 01
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-19
Updated: 2020-04-19
Packaged: 2021-03-01 18:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23741767
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chamel/pseuds/chamel
Summary: Din was not one to leave a partner behind. Even so, everyone in their line of work knew that there were limits. Being stalked by imperial deathtroopers was probably one of them. Any other time he would cut and run, protect the kid at all costs and wish his partner luck. He’d done it before, leaving destruction in his wake, all for the kid.This was not one of those times. Cara was not any other partner. The idea of leaving her behind made him nauseous. The choice between her and the kid was no choice at all; he knew that losing either would destroy him.(After a disastrous run-in with a squad of deathtroopers, Cara makes a decision Din can't live with.)
Relationships: Cara Dune/The Mandalorian (The Mandalorian TV)
Series: You Left Me Under Your Spell: A Collection of CaraDin Short Stories [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1680589
Comments: 15
Kudos: 90





	Star

**Author's Note:**

> I had originally intended this to be rather short but it expanded to take up my week. This is loosely a sequel to _Hyperspace_ (previous work in this "series"), but it also works as an independent piece. Some action, some angst, a bit of fluff at the ending.
> 
> This also an entry for the [Mandothon](https://mandothon.tumblr.com) even though I don't tumblr. Prompt 12, sigh; protect.
> 
> Title/lyrics/inspiration from the same Beck album as _Hyperspace_.

_She said you better stay, stay right where you are_  
_I might get knocked down by a falling star_  
_Set you straight before you hurt yourself somewhere_  
_Sinking like a stone, up into midair_

“How did they find us?” her voice crackled over his comms, the strain coming through as clearly as if she had been standing next to him.

“I don’t know,” he answered, sighing in exhasperation.

They’d been careful. _More_ than careful. This market was as off the beaten path as they came, and they’d taken every precaution getting here. So when he’d spotted an imperial deathtrooper a klick down the road, inspecting passersby, his first reaction had been shock.

At first they thought they hadn’t been seen. They should have known better. They had been _allowed_ to see the deathtrooper, and by then it was already too late. Din had to admit that he’d been careless, paying less attention to their surroundings than he might have, sure that they were safe here. He swore up and down that if by some miracle they got out of this, he’d never make that mistake again.

They’d been divided almost immediately, expertly forced to split up to keep a low profile. The old lady with her door open, enjoying the day’s warm breeze, nearly shouted in surprise when he came charging in and shut the door behind him. One look at the kid in the carrier floating next to him, though, and she kept her mouth shut.

“Where are you?” he asked over the comms.

Silence. His heard sank into his stomach.

“Cara!” he hissed, attempting to keep the desperation from his voice. “What’s happening?”

Din was not one to leave a partner behind. Even so, everyone in their line of work knew that there were limits. Being stalked by imperial deathtroopers was probably one of them. Any other time he would cut and run, protect the kid at all costs and wish his partner luck. He’d done it before, leaving destruction in his wake, all for the kid.

This was not one of those times. Cara was not any other partner. The idea of leaving her behind made him nauseous. The choice between her and the kid was no choice at all; he knew that losing either would destroy him.

His comms crackled to life. “… pinned down betw… mark… and the ship,” she whispered, her voice so low that not all her words were picked up by the mic. “Stay right where you are. Don’t come after me.”

Her last words were clear, no mistaking them. They were also impossible.

He’d seen no sign of the deathtroopers in the area outside the house he was sheltering in, so either he had evaded them or they were patiently waiting for him to emerge. Deathtroopers were not known for their patience, so he assumed the former. She was closer to the ship than he was, and apparently drawing all their fire. The smart thing to do would be to flank them and return to the ship with the kid. The smarter thing would be to then leave this planet immediately.

Din had never claimed to be all that smart.

“We weren’t followed,” he told her. “I think I can get to the Crest.”

“Good. Do it and get out of here.”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Don’t be an idiot. Take the kid and l—”

Her comms went dead and he wasn’t sure if the ringing in his ears was coming from the equipment or from inside his head. Everything seemed to be collapsing down around him. He’d been planning to drop the kid off at the ship and then return for Cara but that window seemed to be rapidly closing if it wasn’t shut already.

He turned to the kid, who was giving him a quizzical and concerned look. He could clearly read Din’s posture enough to know that something was wrong. He held out his hands to Din, but the Mandalorian shook his head.

“You’re gonna have to stay in there. It might get bumpy, but the shell is impervious to just about everything. If anyone besides me or Cara opens this… do whatever it is you do. Ok?”

He had no idea how much of that the kid understood, but based on the look on his tiny face it was enough. Din closed the lid of the carrier again. He took a deep, steadying breath. Three counts in, three counts out. There was only one way this would work: get in and out as fast as possible.

In a sudden rush he burst out of the house, barely hearing the surprised shout of the old woman behind him, and jumped onto the shabby speeder bike that he’d been eyeing across the street. He prayed it had enough oomph. Throwing it into gear, he took off at max speed, the carrier keeping pace just behind him.

He didn’t know exactly where Cara was, but the sounds of blaster fire were unmistakable. To most that sound would be disheartening, but to him it meant that she was still standing. He stomped hard on the gas, willing the bike to give up more speed. Bystanders fleeing the area jumped out of the way and marveled at the sight of the shiny Mandalorian riding it, his cape snapping in the wind behind him.

His explosive entrance into the firefight had the desired effect. Deathtroopers spun wildly, sending blaster bolts winging off in every direction. He cornered hard and sent the bike careening into several troopers; the carrier spun off for a moment then zipped back to him, knocking over everyone in its path. The area wasn’t that big but he saw no sign of Cara anywhere. What if she was injured? What if she was… dead? He couldn’t breathe.

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!?!”

He turned franticly in the direction of her voice and saw her in a second story window, a look of absolute fury on her face. The deathtroopers were thrown into chaos, some running toward the building she was in, others still trying to come after him. They were all far enough away from the building that he’d lap them easily on the bike, though. Stomping on the gas again, he rocketed down the road toward her, ignoring the troopers shooting at him.

“Jump down!” he yelled as he skidded to a stop beneath the window, sending out a hand to grab the carrier before it hit the wall.

“Get out of here!” she yelled back, disappearing again as blaster bolts pelted the edge of the window.

“Not without you!”

“I can’t—” she began, and he heard her voice faltering, “I can’t jump. I can’t stand.”

“Just _fall_ then,” he told her. “I’ll catch you.”

When her voice came again the despair in it shocked him. “C’mon, Din, just leave me.”

They were about to lose any head start that they had. Several of the deathtroopers were closing in on their position while others were attempting to set up a rather large rocket gun.

“If you don’t fall out of the kriffing window right now we’re all going to die so _just do it_ ,” he growled as he picked off several of the closest troopers.

There was a delay of a few seconds and he thought she was going to keep arguing, but suddenly her body appeared in the window. He barely caught a glimpse of a dark wet patch covering her left side before she screwed her eyes shut and turned around, pushing half-heartedly with her right leg off the window ledge.

She landed heavily in his arms and unsuccessfully tried to stifle a yelp of pain. Now that she was closer, he could see that her skin was pale and waxy, and when he pulled his glove away from her side it was soaked with blood.

“Can you sit?” he breathed, feeling his heart pounding in his head.

She nodded weakly and he set her on the bike in front of him, putting one hand on the handlebar and keeping one wrapped around her waist. With a quick check to make sure the carrier was following, he stomped hard on the gas and the bike jumped beneath them. Blaster bolts chased after them, richoceting off the bike and the carrier and one off his pauldron, but they quickly outpaced the deathtroopers.

He didn’t dare slow until they arrived at the Razor Crest. For as unlucky as they had been that day, one small sliver of luck still remained: the ship had not been discovered. As he braked hard and triggered the ramp to lower he felt Cara slump forward in his grasp, unconcious. Her dead weight nearly made him fall over with the bike when they skidded to a stop, but he stumbled out from under it and up the ramp. The carrier zoomed up into the ship and he closed the doors behind them.

They had to get up and away, _now_ , but if he did nothing she was going to bleed out. She groaned as he laid her down on the ground, apparently coming to again.

“I told you to leave me,” she whispered, her eyes still closed.

He looked desperately for wound but there was so much blood. “Fat chance of that,” he muttered, gingerly peeling back the bottom edge of her shirt.

She lifted a pale hand to his, her grip distressingly weak. “Get us out of here. They’re gonna be here any minute. I’ll live, I promise.”

“I’m gonna hold you to that.”

Swearing internally, he left her on the ground and climbed the ladder to the cockpit. Her blood smeared on his controls as he flipped switches and lifted the ship off the ground. From his seat he could see a squadron of deathtroopers beating their way through the forest toward their position. It was too late, though; they shot out into the stratosphere and Din punched in coordinates on the hyperspace drive. Somewhere, anywhere, far from here.

Course set, he scrambled down the ladder again and was shocked to see Cara sitting up, the kid sleeping in her arms. He knelt down in front of her, hands shaking as he reached out to touch her knee.

“Cara, what…?”

She looked up at him, her face pale and wan but her eyes bright. “He… did that thing,” she explained.

“Did you let him out?” he asked, confused.

She shook her head gently. “I passed out again. When I came to he was sleeping next to me.”

Din let out a shaky laugh of relief and pulled off his bloody gloves before he reached out to rub the kid’s head tenderly. “He’s gonna be out for a while,” he murmured.

“He shouldn’t have had to do this,” she said fiercely, a fiery look in her eyes. She held onto the kid protectively. “You shouldn’t have put him in this position. You should have left me.”

The accusation stung. Why was she continuing to dwell on this? “He does what he pleases,” he shot back defensively. “And anyway, did you want me to explain to him that you were _dead_ instead? That would have gone over well.”

“Of course not,” she hissed. “He wouldn’t have had to know that.”

“Oh, so I should lie to him?”

“He’s a child!”

“If you think I will ever lie to either of you, you are sorely mistaken,” he told her, his voice strained. “And if you think I could have ever left you to die…” He trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. He pushed off the ground and made to stand, but she caught his wrist in her free hand.

“What, Din? Then what?” she demanded, her grip surprisingly strong.

Not strong enough to keep him from pulling away, though. Not in her current state. He stood, looking away from her. What could he say? She didn’t know how much she meant to him because he’d never told her, and he was still too much of a coward to do so. He shook his head.

“I have to go check our course,” he mumbled, even though there was no real reason to do so. He turned and disappeared up the ladder again, fleeing from a conversation he couldn’t bear to have.

* * *

It was a day later, in the middle of hyperspace, when she shattered his world.

“Can we talk?”

He turned in his cockpit chair to see her emerging from the ladder, her face set in a grim expression.

 _No_ , he wanted to say, not because he didn’t want to talk to her, but because he feared what she was going to say. “Sure,” he said instead.

She finished climbing into the cockpit and stood in front of him as if waiting for him to begin the conversation.

“Do you want to sit?” he offered, even though he knew she would have taken the other chair if she’d wanted to.

She chewed pensively on her lip. “No.”

This was bad. The silence stretched on between them again. “Ok,” he said eventually. “What did you want to talk about?”

She took a deep, shaky breath. “I think it would be better if we parted ways.”

Din felt everything grow dim, and all he could hear was his own blood rushing in his ears. The stars outside stretched around them as they flew along, illuminating her in bluish stripes, and he wondered if he was dreaming. No, when he dreamed of hyperspace it was always a good dream, and this was a nightmare.

“Din?” she said cautiously.

He realized he’d been sitting there motionless, staring at her. She looked concerned and defensive, like she had prepared for him to argue with her.

“Why?” was the only response he could muster. The word sounded thin and brittle through his modulator.

She sat down on the seat across from him and dropped her forehead head into her hands, elbows propped on her knees. When she looked up at him again he could swear that her eyes were glittering, but the light from the stars was so low it could be an illusion.

“It’s better that way. It is,” she said, sounding a bit like she was trying to convince herself. “My being around just puts you both in more danger.”

“That’s not even close to true,” he scoffed. “I can’t count the number of times you’ve saved both our asses. Cara, the kid would have been dead months ago if not for you.”

She shook her head slowly, apparently not convinced by this argument. “I have to leave before someone gets hurt,” she replied quietly, not meeting his gaze.

This was a supremely confusing statement. “So what? We get hurt all the time.”

“I don’t mean physically hurt.”

“Oh.”

What he should have said was “ _It’s too late for that._ ” What he should have told her was that if she left it was going to break his heart into a million tiny pieces and _that_ was going to hurt. What he said was, “ _Oh_.”

What an idiot.

She stood up and looked down at him. “I’ll take off at the next port. Doesn’t matter where.”

She waited for a second, but his brain didn’t seem to be functioning. He felt like he was underwater, sinking like a stone and unable to reach the surface. If he opened his mouth, he would drown for certain. So he sat, paralyzed.

When he didn’t reply he saw her face crumple for a instant, but the expression was gone so fast he wasn’t sure it had actually happened. She began descending the ladder and he forced himself to reach out and wrap his hand around hers, gripping one of the rungs.

“Cara…”

There were real tears in her eyes when she looked up at him then, but she squeezed them shut and shook her head. She pulled her hand from under his and continued climbing down, disappearing below.

The moment she had gone it was as if whatever spell had bound him was lifted. Suddenly he had so much to say. He jumped out of his chair, only to be knocked back into it as the ship automatically dropped out of hyperspace. He’d intended make for a small planet not far away, but he quickly reprogrammed the coordinates to switch hyperspace lanes and head for somewhere farther away.

“I thought we were done with hyperspace?” she asked when he descended the ladder. She was folding some clothes matter-of-factly, as if everything wasn’t in shambles. “Problem?”

Din shook his head slowly. “I changed the course.” She looked up at him sharply. “I wanted to put more distance…” he began, but he couldn’t finish the sentence. It was a lie, and he couldn’t lie to her.

“Din, what’s going on?” she asked suspiciously. She put the clothes she’d been holding and walked over to him.

He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. “While I do think that we’re better off further from the Imps, really I was hoping that you’d give me until we reach the next planet to convince you to stay.”

“How long is that?”

“Couple of hours?”

She crossed her arms in front of her chest, frowning. “And what if I say no?”

“Then we drop out of hyperspace and head back to the last place,” he said with a sigh, his shoulders slumped. “Just say the word.”

He expected her tell him to turn around and not speak to him for the rest of the voyage, but her expression softened and she uncrossed her arms. “Ok, fine. I’ll hear you out, but I can’t guarantee I’ll change my mind.”

“That’s all I’m asking,” he replied quickly, trying and failing not to let hope creep too far back into his heart. “Well, not _all_ , but you get the idea…”

“I do,” she agreed, the barest hint of a smile playing on her lips. “So what is this argument that you have for me?”

In actuality, Din had no idea what he was going to say to convince her to stay. He’d come up with this “plan,” if it could even be called that, without thinking it through, and now she was standing there looking at him expectantly.

“Well,” he began tentatively, his head spinning, “you made an argument that you put us in danger by being around. Which, I’m sorry, is bantha shit. You know that, right?”

A look of uncertainty flitted across her face. “Yesterday…”

“Yesterday was… not a good day,” he admitted. “But we all made it out. The kid is fine. Great, even. I said it before and I’ll say it again: we are safer when you’re with us.”

“Some day you’re gonna have to choose between me and the kid,” she argued stubbornly.

“Maybe,” he agreed, ignoring the tightness in his throat that threatened to choke him. “But yesterday was not that day. What if the situation were reversed?What if you had to make that choice?”

Cara opened her mouth but no sound came out. She looked down and shook her head. “I already did, once,” she muttered. “I’m not sure that I could do it again.”

That day seemed so long ago, now. So much had changed, and yet the companionship and trust that would grow between them had already been obvious then. Din reached out and placed a hand on her arm, giving it a gentle squeeze.

“I trusted you to make that decision, to know when there are no other options, and I trust you now. Do you trust me to do the same?”

When she looked up at him there were tears glittering in her eyes again. “Of course I do,” she answered softly.

“Why are you really leaving?”

The question seemed to hang in the air as she stared at him, worrying the side of her lip with her teeth. Suddenly the answer struck him: the talk about someone getting hurt, _why_ she was so reticent to open up about it. It seemed so obvious now. She was trying to protect him. She could see how he felt about her—feelings that she did _not_ share—and thought that if she left now she could spare him.

“It’s ok,” he said abruptly, causing an expression of surprise to come over her face. “I understand. You’re concerned about not returning my… feelings,” he forced himself to say, “but you don’t have to be. I value our friendship more than anything, Cara.”

She smiled at him sadly and shook her head. “That’s _so_ not it at all,” she sighed. Her eyes dropped to the floor again. “I—I can feel myself falling for you. But it would never work out between us.”

He’d let his guard down. Let a sliver of hope in. And now that knife of hope was rending a large hole in his heart. He should have known that it would come down to this. He’d been warned: warned by his parents, warned by the other members of the tribe. It always did, for them.

“The helmet,” he said, his words ringing hollowly in his ears.

“What?” she said sharply, bringing his eyes back to hers, which were wide with surprise. “No! Din, I would never— that doesn’t matter—” She stopped and closed her eyes for a moment, collecting herself. “I don’t care that I can never see your face. That’s not even remotely a consideration.” She sighed again and looked at the floor. “It wouldn’t work out because you are way too good for me.”

He blinked several times, completely confounded by this statement. “What are you talking about?”

“You deserve someone who is gentle and polite, someone who knows how to cook and take care of a kid, someone who doesn’t have a past they’re ashamed of. That’s not me,” she said flatly.

Without thinking he grabbed her by both shoulders, as if she might flee at that moment if he didn’t stop her. “Cara, look at me,” he pleaded, and when she did he’d never seen her look so uncertain. “I don’t want any of that. I want _you_.” There was a beat of silence, and he figured that he might as well let the other shoe drop. “I love you, Cara.”

He had no choice to lay his heart out before her, and either his gambit would work, or it wouldn’t and she’d leave anyway. She stared at him, her lips slightly parted in a look of shock. That was it, then. This little experiment—this partnership—was over.

“I just… thought you should know,” he said quietly, dropping his hands from her shoulders. “I understand if you don’t—”

“No!” she interrupted forcefully as she grabbed his wrists. “I do.”

“Do… what?” he asked hesitantly.

Her hands tightened around his wrists and her eyes widened. “Wait, what were you going to say?”

“That I understand if you don’t want to stay.”

“Oh. Yeah. That’s what I thought,” she answered, the tone of her voice belying this statement. “I do want to stay.”

Din was pretty sure that this wasn’t entirely true, but he would take it nonetheless. “So you’re not leaving at the next port?”

For the first time since she was injured she smiled at him, unmoderated by any hesitation or reluctance. She pulled him forward and wrapped his arms around her waist, leaving his hands on her lower back as she raised hers to interlace her fingers behind his neck. He felt his pulse spike and his head swam. He’d dreamed of holding her like this, but never thought it would actually happen.

Cara pulled his head toward hers until her forehead met his helmet. “I’m not leaving.”

“About what I said… I don’t want things to be weird between us,” he said hesitantly. Despite their current position, despite what she’d said, he still couldn’t quite believe that her feelings for him could even remotely approximate his. Surely it was just emotions running high and he was reading too much into everything.

He saw her smirk before she moved her head down to nestle in the space between his helmet and his shoulder. Her lips brushed his neck gently. “It won’t be weird,” she murmured.

Her voice rang in his ears, both picked up by his helmet’s mic and vibrating up through his neck. He moaned involuntarily and felt her lips curl into a smile against his skin.

When he’d come after her he’d hardly believed that he would be successful at convincing her to stay. This? This was beyond anything he could have imagined. No more secrets, no more hiding his feelings. He felt light, and free, and indescribably _happy_.

“What were you planning for the rest of your argument?” she murmured between kisses.

He swallowed hard. “You require more convincing?”

“No,” she answered, laughing softly. “But I would accept it.”

He grinned broadly, pulling her body against his. “I’m sure I can think of something.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed this little break from my main series. I promise you'll get the next chapter next Sunday. I just can't resist getting all angsty with these two, but I also can't resist a happy ending.
> 
> Drop me a comment if you liked this, I love to hear from you all! 😘


End file.
